USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



Noxious berries that sometimes tempt children to 

 their sorrow are those of the Moonseed {Menisper- 

 mum Canadense, L.), so called because of the curi- 

 ous seeds, which are shaped like a crescent or horse- 

 shoe. This is a climbing perennial vine of fence 

 rows and waterside thickets, indigenous from Canada 

 to Arkansas and Georgia. The large leaves are 

 rather wider than long with a somewhat heartshaped 

 base. The small greenish flowers are scarcely no- 

 ticeable, but the vine attracts attention in autumn 

 because of its conspicuous bunches of berries, bluish- 

 black with a bloom, which look so much like chicken 

 grapes that the novice may mistake them for these. 

 Stories of poisoning from eating wild grapes some- 

 times get into the newspapers, and are traceable to 

 the Moonseed, whose berries are poisonous-narcotic, 

 a character of the family to which the vine belongs. 

 The clustered, black berries of the common Night- 

 shade {Solanum nigrum, L.), a naturalized weed of 

 waste places everywhere, are also a tempting sight, 

 but had better be avoided ; for while they are doubt- 

 less harmless when thoroughly ripe (I have myself 



tree, should be applied to an herb. According to Prior in "Popu- 

 lar Names of British Plants," the term was originally given in Eng- 

 land to any of the Umhelliferae — the word being degenerate Anglo- 

 Saxon meaning "straw plant," because of the dry, hollow stalks that 

 remain after flowering. 



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